Elliot Anderson grew up a Newcastle fan in Whitley Bay, but Manchester City were always his second club, and the £116m midfielder has now revealed the grandad’s gift and the Etihad hero that started it all.
Speaking to the club’s official City Magazine for its November issue, the 23-year-old opened up on his childhood, his path through Newcastle, Bristol Rovers and Nottingham Forest, and the player he modelled himself on. It was not Lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo. It was Kevin De Bruyne.
The timing is neat. Anderson is on the shortlist for City’s October Player of the Month, he is in the squad for Wednesday night’s Champions League trip to RB Leipzig, and on Saturday he goes back to the City Ground to face Forest.
How has Elliot Anderson settled at Man City?
Quicker than almost anyone could have hoped. Elliot Anderson arrived after England’s run to the World Cup semi-finals, with City clear for weeks that he was the man they wanted, and he has become the glue in Enzo Maresca’s new-look side.
He keeps it modest. “It’s gone well so far, I think,” he said. “Obviously, performances help you settle in. That plus training where the lads have been brilliant with me. There’s been a lot of change over the summer for the club, so everyone’s kind of in the same boat.”
That last line matters. Manchester City had to replace Rodri this summer, and nobody fills those boots like for like. Anderson is a different player, but the calm he gives the midfield is a similar kind of effect, and it is a big reason he is already being called the signing of the summer.
He also thanked the supporters for their patience after a quiet first outing. “The fans have been great to me from the first minute I played and really supported me and got behind me,” Anderson said. “Obviously, my first game was in the Community Shield and wasn’t my best performance, but I think the fans really sort of stuck with me and hopefully I’ve started to repay them.”
He has. He has been outstanding at Old Trafford and at Anfield, where City won 3-0, and he is up against Erling Haaland and Phil Foden in the vote for City’s October Player of the Month.
The grandad, the City shirt and a Newcastle upbringing
Anderson came through Wallsend Boys Club and joined Newcastle United at eight, the club his grandfather Geoff Allen once played for. He stayed for the best part of 15 years.
“I think I joined the under nines and left when I was about 21, I think. So, yeah, I was a long time at the club, and I loved it,” he said. “Obviously, I’ve always been a Newcastle fan, and all my family have been, but everyone has got a second club and yeah, that was City for me.”
Then came the detail City fans will love. “My grandad got me a City shirt, I think around the 2010/11 season, and I was about eight at the time. It was something I’d just wear around the house, while outside I was always in a Newcastle top.”
Bristol Rovers, the first step away from home
Chances at St James’ Park were limited, so he spent the second half of 2021/22 on loan at League Two Bristol Rovers, scoring seven goals in 21 games. “It was the first time I’d left my family, and it was, I was sort of stepping outside my comfort zone. I grew as a player as well, and a person, and I loved everything,” he said.
He went back to Newcastle and played 26 times in 2023/24 before a two-year spell at Forest set up the move to the Etihad.
Why Kevin De Bruyne, not Messi or Ronaldo?
Ask most players of his age about their idols and you get the same two names. Anderson went another way once he understood his own position.
“As a kid I guess you could say Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo were idols for a lot of kids, but once I started to get an understanding of the game and the position I played in, it was always Kevin De Bruyne who I looked up to and wanted to be,” he said.
“He was an amazing footballer, and, yeah, that was the sort of the player I always closely looked at. I always watched and really loved the way he passed the ball. It was just so satisfying to watch the way he passed the ball.”
De Bruyne left City at the end of 2024/25 after ten years at the club. A year and a bit later, the boy who watched him from Whitley Bay is the one pulling the strings in sky blue.
Elliot Anderson and the Forest return
Manchester is starting to feel like home too. “I’d never really stayed in the city previously, and I’m obviously loving it,” he said. “I’m really enjoying it.”
The next few days test that. City have lost their last two league games and need a reaction in Leipzig, where Maresca has asked his other players to share the goals with Haaland. Then Anderson faces his old Forest team-mates on Saturday.
For us, this is why he has fitted in so fast. A lad who wore a City shirt around the house and studied De Bruyne’s passing was never going to treat this move as just another transfer. If he plays at Forest the way he has played at Anfield and Old Trafford, City’s bad week could end a lot better than it started.
